C99 Features

[Chris Hecker]

I still build on vs2008, for what it's worth.

Chris
 On Jun 15, 2015 10:24 PM, "Greg Hudson" <ghudson at mit.edu> wrote:

> On 06/15/2015 09:06 PM, Nathaniel McCallum wrote:
> > So how about it? Can MIT start using C99 features?
>
> There are four questions here:
>
> 1. Can we reasonably require MSVC 2013 for the Windows build?  I don't
> know of a compelling reason why we can't, but there may be reasons I
> don't know about.
>
> 2. Can we abandon MSVC for the Windows build in favor of mingw or clang,
> in order to get VLA support?  I think the practical answer here is no,
> in that we don't expect to commit the resources to investigate this
> possibility in the near future.
>
> 3. Should we allow MSVC-unsupported C99 features in code we don't
> currently build on Windows?  (This includes the KDC, KDB library,
> PKINIT, and everything related to kadmin including gssrpc.)  I don't
> really feel strongly either way, but it doesn't buy us a lot to allow it
> in just a few places, and the inconsistency could be confusing.
>
> 4. Are there any C99 features we don't want to use, because they don't
> mesh with our BSD KNF-inspired style or for other reasons?  Going over
> the specific features you mentioned:
>
> * Designated initializers and compound literals don't seem to present
> any stylistic or practical issues.  VLAs also don't seem to present
> issues except for the lack of MSVC support.
>
> * Does _Bool present any issues if it creeps into public ABIs?  I found
> http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/bool.html but it's from 2009, and might
> be specific to the kernel.  It might also just be confusing to have
> "krb5_boolean" and "bool" in the same code base when they aren't
> generally the same size (krb5_boolean is a typedef for unsigned int).
>
> * Our style guide discourages declaring variables in interior scope.
> The justification (which predates my involvement) has to do with
> debugging convenience and limiting function complexity; I personally
> find that code is a little easier to read if it doesn't have type
> declarations mixed in with statements.  If there are good reasons to
> avoid interior scope declarations, those reasons may also apply to mixed
> declarations and code.
> http://k5wiki.kerberos.org/wiki/Coding_style/Practices#Local_variables
>
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